Passenger drone: Unmanned plane takes maiden flight over UK skies

Large civilian planes remotely operated by a controller on the ground could become a reality within just a few years, after British aerospace giant BAE conducted a successful overland UK flight of an unmanned prototype for the first time.

“I believe we are writing a new chapter in aviation
history,” said Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, director of the £62
million government-backed ASTRAEA (Autonomous Systems Technology
Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment) program, which is
developing the sophisticated sensors that allow the plane to
respond to outside conditions without the help of human eyes
on-board.

The Jetstream 31 – an expensive experimental project known as
‘The Flying Testbed’ that looks much like an ordinary 16-seater
training plane – took off from Lancashire in northern England, and
landed safely 500 miles away in Inverness in Scotland.

As a precaution, two pilots sat in the cockpit, while the entire
flight was conducted by an operator back at base.

"The pilots were sitting there having a coffee. They did not
have to do anything," said a BAE spokesman.

Flying a plane from the ground takes more than just building a
remote control.

Using an automated visual detection system, the plane
automatically steers away from dangerous weather formations as it
sees them, while its antennae pick up signals from nearby aircraft
to avoid them. The Jetstream 31 also scans the ground for potential
safe landing zones in case of emergencies. In the past, the lack of
“sense and avoid” technologies and other features that would
ensure that drones do not cause danger to manned planes were seen
as the key stumbling block for letting them into civilian
skies.

Dopping-Hepenstal admitted that it was “early days”, but
said these on-board innovations “will likely impact all of us in
the next five, ten, 20 years as unmanned aircraft and associated
technology develop and become a part of everyday life.”

UK’s air regulators have already given out permits for several
hundred light drones to share airspace with manned planes. But in
the future larger craft using the technologies piloted by ASTRAEA
could be used for extended rescue, patrol or pursuit missions,
where time would be lost by having to return to base to refuel and
change pilots. Whether eventually passenger planes also become
remotely operated, will depend on more than just engineering
capability, but social attitudes.

"It's not just the technology, we're trying to think about
the social impact of this and the ethical and legal things
associated with it," said Dopping-Hepenstal.

“These latest trials help prove the technology we need to
routinely operate unmanned aircraft in our airspace and also help
the regulators develop the framework in which the aircraft can
operate."

US air regulator FAA has insisted that drones be integrated into
the civilian airspace by 2015, and the UK plans to do so by the end
of the decade.